“Jenkins has contributed significantly to the definition of the notion of space which today governs a vast sector of contemporary painting.” Pierre Restany

Having studied four years at the historic Art Students League during which years he met Jackson Pollock & Lee Krasner, Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman, Paul Jenkins is a major artistic figure associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement.

Starting in 1956, he was one of the major artists to be exhibited at the famous Martha Jackson Gallery in New York.

“Jenkins is obstinately attached to the fundamental dynamic, an attitude that could be described as a refusal of the static in all its states.” Pierre Restany

Using the technique of “controlled paint-pouring” with which the artist pours colour directly onto the support, Paul Jenkins integrates perfectly into the Action Painting movement of the Post-War period, between spontaneity and mastery of the artistic gesture.

Nourished by the complementary contributions of the art scenes of New York and Paris where he met Georges Mathieu and Pierre Soulages, he was also influenced by the masters of colour: Henri Matisse, Paul Gauguin and Vassily Kandinsky, as well as Mark Rothko.

“Jenkins’ colour range ignores all censure in the visual: his palette ventures well beyond the conventional limits in the upper reaches of the spectrum.” Pierre Restany

In the 1950s, oils on canvas covered in matter like a potter’s glaze : recalling his time in his early years working with a ceramist in Kansas City, Missouri, his work evolved naturally towards the affirmation of colour, in particular from 1962 with the new use of acrylics. This resulted in refined liquid forms, whichstands out from white backgrounds, these Phenomena… inspired by Goethe’s colour theories.

“Jenkins is one of the great religious or better, spiritual painters of our century.” Paul Veyne

Like Sam Francis, Mark Tobey, and the other artists of the New York School, Paul Jenkins was especially influenced by the theories of Jung in the 1950s, as well as by Oriental religions and philosophies, infusing his entire output with a mystical and spiritual character.

He often travelled to Asia, especially to Japan where he worked with Jiro Yoshihara and the Gutai.